


Waiting for Jeannie Part III

by Dannell Lites Archivist (offpanel_archivist)



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-01-01
Updated: 2001-01-01
Packaged: 2018-02-03 13:41:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1746680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/offpanel_archivist/pseuds/Dannell%20Lites%20Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Tale Of Sexual Tension by Dannell Lites</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting for Jeannie Part III

**Author's Note:**

> This story is archived on behalf of Dannell Lites, who passed away in 2002, with the permission of her family. Posting date approximate.
> 
> \--
> 
> SPIFFY DISCLAIMER THINGIE!
> 
> They belong to Marvel, not moi!:):) No money is being made heah (consarn it!)! No infringement of copyright is intended, so don't sue moi!:):)
> 
> Rated PG-15 for adult situations although nothing is described a'tall!
> 
> This is unbetaed. It's all moi's fault.
> 
> Enjoy!:):)

You are a patient woman. Yes, you are. From your early years you have carefully learned patience and how to wait for a thing, a person, to blossom with the fullness of time. Under Charles Xavier's tutelage you have carefully learned to erect shields, how to protect yourself from the shouting, encroaching minds all around you. And just as carefully learned how to open yourself to them, how to immerse yourself in the glory of being so close to another person, of understanding _**them**_ and all they are so fully. Sometimes you grieve for all the others, the many head blind ones who cannot ever know this security, this peaceful assurance of themselves and others that comes so naturally to you with your immense gifts. How do they do it you sometimes wonder? How do they manage? They stumble about, groping like the sightless, for the merest scrap, the palest echo, of this wonder that comes so easily, so eagerly, to your spirit. They seldom find it. But they never stop searching do they? You will always love them for that.

At yet, it comes at a steep price, this glory, this wonder. All your life you have fought, you have struggled. From the beginning you struggled to lock them out; to remain Jean Grey and not lose yourself in the immensity of the flood, the raging torrent, of their desires, their passions. And when that battle was won, you fought to protect them from the evils they spawned and from their own folly. That battle yet rages. It will never be done, you fear. You have fought to protect those you love from their fear and ignorance as well. That battle is also ceaseless, but you fight it gladly.

But, in all that time, all that patience, all that struggle, you fear that you have loved too often; too sharply and, perhaps, too well.

Except maybe for Scott.

Except maybe for Logan.

You were patient when you waited for Scott. Waited for him to find himself before he could turn to you. It was Charles who taught you to see the potential in a thing; in a person. To peer cautiously beneath the facade, to the core of a thing; the heart of a person. Scott is a part of you now, through the psychic bond you share. You cannot imagine how you survived without him. He knows you completely. He sees it all. All of you; the defeats, the failures, the temper to go along with your red hair that you suppress. The pettiness and the guilt. Al the things you so assiduously hide from the others for fear of being rejected; fear of being known as only human, after all. But Scott knows them all.

And still he loves you.

Scott is a miracle.

Charles has given you a great many gifts throughout the years. But this was his most precious one. He gave you Scott.

You will always love him for that.

Yes, you love Charles. How could you not? It was he who rescued you from the depths of you fear and catatonia when your young friend Annie died and almost took you with her. You can still smile at the thought of him, standing so tall and strong, clad in his psychic armor like some latter day Roman warrior. You can yet recall the sorrow you knew on his behalf when your eyes brought you the truth of his confinement. Your first sight of him, sitting calmly in his wheelchair, gently holding your hand and smiling with reassurance at you is indelibly etched into the fabric of your memory like shining golden thread into the plainest of cloth.

But, in all that time, all that patience, all those miracles, you fear that you have loved too often; too sharply and, perhaps, too well.

Except maybe for Scott.

Except maybe for Logan.

And so, now you wait upon Logan. You find him sitting upon the mansion's back steps, contemplating the beauty of the setting sun reflected in the warm depths of his deep brown eyes. It is very like him, you think, to so plunge himself into the radiance of a thing, the grandeur of it, and to say nothing. You smile softly. With the keenness of his senses, the sharpness of his ears and eyes, it is impossible to take him by surprise. So you do not even try. He knows that you are there almost before you do. Automatically, he crushes the life from his burning cigarette beneath the heel of his heavy boots because he knows that you despise them so.

"Evenin', Jeannie," he says, trying so very hard to keep his voice, his manner, casual; to pretend that nothing has changed. He does not call you "darlin'" and you find that you miss the small endearment now that it's gone.

Nor do you miss the sadness in his eyes, the longing in his heart. And it stabs at you, wounding your spirit to know that.

But then you put it there.

Your hand, when you touch his cheek, is gentle, caressing. "Logan." You speak his name with reverence, like a prayer winging it's way to the ears of the Creator. Surprisingly, he does not flinch from you, but instead for a moment, a single heartbreaking moment, he relaxes into your caress as though it were something to be desired, greatly longed for, and sought after. Aspired to. Your heart soars.

But then, wordless, he turns from you, not wishing you to see the accusation in his pain filled eyes. He trusted you and you have betrayed him. _**You**_ were the one to decide how things must be between you. And now ...

Tenderly, you turn his head to face you once more. You want to see his eyes. He does not resist you. You almost expect him to turn away once more and your heart begins a downward spiral into the depths of despair at the thought. But he surprises you. For a moment, a single glorious yet heartbreaking moment, he leans into the tenderness you offer him as though he had longed for it, prayed for it. Your heart soars in your breast. In your mind, that finely tuned instrument of hard honed precision and keenness, that single moment will always be frozen in time, like the loveliest flower you can remember captured forever in it's perfection. Beautiful and perfect.

But, unlike the flower it is not meant to last. Soon - oh so very soon! - he lowers his eyes and steps away from you.

"Logan ... Scott and I have talked. We came to an important decision." Your voice is soft and, you hope, soothing. Please God let him pause long enough to listen to you.

Please.

He is silent, but still he will not face you. Not look into your eyes to see the promise shining there. But you are a determined woman who will not be put off. You smile. And it must be admitted that you are accustomed to silent men who do not easily share their feelings. In the past it has never stopped you from pursuing what you desire. It will not stop you now.

"Don't you want to know what we decided?"

He combs busy fingers through his unruly hair and, stubbornly, it falls back into the same massive widow's peak. His hair is much like the rest of him, proud and refusing to be anything but what it is. You love him for that.

"We decided that we want you to be part of our lives. That we want you to be part of _**us**_." Slowly he faces you, now, earth brown eyes wide with astonishment. And disbelief? With a sculptured nail you reach out and trace the line of one high boned cheek. "We have a gift for you."

"A gift? What sort o' gift, Jeannie?"

There is no suspicion in his voice, none at all. He trusts you implicitly and that simple thing gladdens you more than you can say. But it is the awe and wonder dwelling in that deep, harsh voice that reaches you most strongly. That makes you know that you have made the right decision. The idea that someone would do something just for _**him**_ \-- for _**Logan**_ ; not Wolverine or Weapon X nor any of a dozen others you can sense in his mind, but for Logan, that simple yet oh so complex man who stands waiting before you now is amazing to him.

"This ... " you whisper.

Entwining your fingers in the spiky shortness of his coal black hair, you draw him slowly, gently into a kiss. For all it's passion, all it's fire, you barely touch your lips to his. It is enough. Like a river, wild and untamed by dam or levee you feel him come hurtling, bursting into your mind. All of him.

The great strength that lies at the heart of him, that keeps the beast at bay; the deep ties of friendship and loyalty that bind him to his fellow X-Men as tightly as his fierce nature covets. The small pure and shining ,peaceful place within him where Mariko dwells. The hot and passionate place where he keeps _**you**_ and his love for you, burning with Phoenix begotten fire and heat. All of these treasure you cherish and caress in passing. In your arms you can feel him shiver with delight.

And fear.

For this is _**all**_ of Logan. Nothing is hidden or denied you. Not the white hot rage and fury that seethes within him constantly seeking release. Nor the desire, so carefully, cunningly disguised as anger and hatred he bears for Victor Creed. Not even the frustration and fear surrounding the secrets of his unknown, perhaps unknowable past. He does not really want to know the answers, you realize, now. What little he knows of his past is damning enough. The horrors that might so easily bubble and churn, lurking beneath the roiling surface of that black morass are best left undiscovered.

Although he does not understand yet the totality of what you have done, the blazing fire of your gift, he senses enough to know how easily, how agonizingly it could burn him, leaving only blackened cinders in its thoughtless wake...

And he is afraid.

Oh, you know this fear, yes you do. You know it well. You have faced it in your mirror on many a weary morning, gleaming from out of your own haunted, fevered eyes.

When you first came back to yourself and realized what the Phoenix had done, you were terrified. Yes, you were. Terrified ...and elated. Elated and disappointed that you had not thought of it yourself. But, then, since the Phoenix was you in every discernible sense of the word, you did think of it, after all, didn't you?

Elated and terribly, terribly frightened.

For just as you now knew all of Scott, so he in his turn knew all of *you*. The small vanities, the petty jealousies ... All the things you worked so hard to keep from the others so as not to mar the image of Perfect Jean in their adoring eyes. The dark and towering cruelty and lust for power unearthed by Jason Wyngard, Mastermind, in his skilled creation of his Black Queen. All this laid bare like a rotting corpse on a vivesectionist's stinking, bloody table. The insatiable hunger, the great conflagration that was the Dark Phoenix.

You avoided Scott for days. But, in the end, he would not let you hide. he came to you and when you tried to run, to turn away he held you back with firm, loving hands. His kiss was sweet upon your parched lips. But how much sweeter was the flood of unconditional love that came flowing out of him like glorious sunlight to warm your tattered spirit.

He smiled and brushed aside a lock of your scarlet hair; in his mind so like a bright, nurturing fire driving back the darkness and kissed you.

"You're beautiful Jean. _**All**_ of you." he whispered and sent your mind flying aloft, higher even than Warren ever flew and with more joy.

The wonder and acceptance you spy in Logan's dark, no longer hooded eyes, is reward enough. It is your joy. Bit that is scarcely all that you have learned from him this day. How appropriate, you think. A strong, simple name and yet full of echoes. So like the man himself.

"Welcome hone, John," you whisper in his ear. "Welcome home."

Your name is Jean Grey and they tell you that you are the Phoenix, reborn from your own ashes. They tell you that you are Tipharth, Child of the Sun, Child of Life; that you are the vision of the Harmony of Things. All of your extraordinary life you have lived and loved, cherished and been cherished by others. It is your nature, it seems. It comes as naturally to you as sunlight to a flower. And, like a flower in the sun, you have blossomed in the light and warmth of that love.

And yet ...

In all that extraordinary life you fear that you have loved too often; too sharply and, perhaps, too well.

Except maybe for Scott.

Except maybe for Logan.

The End


End file.
